@CNG/dotfiles (Arch Linux)

This Bash and Ansible project installs Arch Linux from scratch and configures it for use on my desktop and laptop. There are a few bits in the setup that need tweaking, thus it's not fully automated. I neglected to update this since 2024 till I used it again to setup from scratch at the end of 2026 due to an SSD crash. I hadn't exported my packages before that crash, so will be likely making changes here again as I discover what's missing. Also, I am no longer working in tech but rather a student again, so I'll probably strip out some of the tools and complication I won't be using for some time, I hope. :-)

The contents of ansible is based on @pigmonkey/spark with roles and components added or removed; consider reviewing that project for useful bits or updates. Much of my previously script based configuration for Mac is now simplified for Linux in files.

Installation

This assumes you are already in Linux in order to make the installation media. If you're doing it from another Arch Linux Live USB, take care with the device identifiers! USB keys are likely /dev/sd* and microSD cards may be mmcblk0. If anything is not installed like vim, you can run pacman -Sy vim on the live Linux just fine as long as the Internet is connected.

1. Choose an Arch Linux Downloads mirror under "HTTP Direct Downloads" such as Rackspace and copy the .iso file link.

2. Insert USB stick and confirm path, such as /dev/sda. Run command: sudo make_media /dev/sda URL

3. Boot from the new USB drive.

   # Run `loadkeys dvorak` on Dvorak keyboard
   nraet.fo ekrpat
   auditctl -e0  # If logging is too intense
   mkdir -p /tmp/setup
   mount /dev/sda2 /tmp/setup | true
   # Verify the target disk with lsblk; this erases and repartitions it.
   # Pass ROOTDEVICE and hostname; add s2idle or deep if desired:
   /tmp/setup/dotfiles/base /dev/nvme0n1 ExampleHostname
   # For OMEN laptop:
   # /tmp/setup/dotfiles/base /dev/nvme0n1 ExampleHostname s2idle
   

4. Verify the target disk and execute base with its path and the desired hostname; remove USB media when it reboots at the end.

5. .

mkdir -p /home/cgorichanaz /mnt/usb
mount /dev/sda2 /mnt/usb
cp -a /mnt/usb/dotfiles /home/cgorichanaz
cp -a /mnt/usb/.dotfiles /home/cgorichanaz
cd /home/cgorichanaz/dotfiles
ln -s ../.dotfiles private
nmcli device wifi connect SSID password PASS

1. Execute provision.

Todo

Some issues I noticed after the last run through to be addressed:

• Home folder items and SSH folder end up owned by root. Need to fix that at the end or try to run provision as the user earlier in this process, right after the user account is created?
• Missing my mounts to load the server folders in Dolphin quickly.
• Somehow reinstalling got me into systemd decrypt land, so I needed to change the syntax of some things that are not reflected in the install script yet. The HOOKS line gets to look like this: HOOKS=(base systemd keyboard autodetect microcode modconf kms sd-vconsole block sd-encrypt lvm2 resume filesystems fsck). That's with sd-encrypt instead of encrypt, removes an extra keyboard I had, and removes keymap and consolefont because apparently they are handled by sd-vconsole now.
• Then had to change arch.conf to match sd-encrypt syntax with: options rd.luks.name=YOUR-LUKS-UUID=luks root=/dev/mapper/luks rootflags=subvol=root rw.
• So I need to make an automatic call to cryptsetup luksUUID /dev/nvme0n1p3.

Troubleshooting

Steps to boot from live USB key.

# Run loadkeys dvorak on Dvorak keyboard
nraet.fo ekrpat
cryptsetup open /dev/nvme0n1p4 luks
mount -o subvol=root /dev/mapper/luks /mnt
mount /dev/nvme0n1p1 /mnt/boot
iwctl station wlan0 connect SSID --passphrase PASS
arch-chroot /mnt/root
# mount all the Btrfs etc partitions we now have in /etc/fstab
mount -a
# If need to fix boot:
mkinitcpio -p linux
# Or maybe EFI options messed up, in which case might be able to
# select \EFI\BOOT\BOOTX64.EFI or \EFI\systemd\systemd-bootx64.efi
# by hitting F9 upon boot and manually selecting EFI
# May need to run bootctl outside chroot and use --esp-path=/mnt/root/boot
bootctl install
# May also need to remove/fix boot entries
efibootmgr -v
efibootmgr --delete-bootnum -b 0001
# or could try:
efibootmgr --create --disk /dev/nvme0n1 --part 1 --label "Linux Boot Manager" \
  --loader '\EFI\systemd\systemd-bootx64.efi'

Migrating to larger SSD

A very good case is made to avoid dd due to lack of safegaurds, but I will live on the edge here since I have my important data backed up.

# Clone disk to new SSD
dd if=/dev/nvme0n1 of=/dev/sdb bs=1024M oflag=sync status=progress

# Fix partition table (backup GPT is in middle of disk not end!)
gdisk /dev/sdb
w
Y
Y

# Expand partition
yay -Sys cloud-guest-utils
growpart /dev/sdb 3
partprobe /dev/sdb

# Expand filesystem
cryptsetup luksOpen /dev/sdb3 encrypted_volume
cryptsetup resize encrypted_volume
mount /dev/mapper/encrypted_volume /mnt
btrfs filesystem resize max /mnt

# Skipped this for now: fstrim -v /mnt

About the system

Installation and configuration flow

base prepares the disk, creates the encrypted Btrfs layout, installs Arch Linux, and reboots. After the manual post-install setup described above, provision runs Ansible locally against the new system. ansible/playbook.yml applies the common roles and condition-specific roles, using settings and package lists from ansible/group_vars/all.yml. The dotfiles role deploys configuration from files/ into the user's home directory.

Sway

Sway is the configured desktop environment and window manager. The desktop_environment: sway setting in ansible/group_vars/all.yml makes the playbook run the Sway role and the greeter role. The Sway role installs Sway and sets up the user's application defaults. The user's Sway configuration is files/config/sway/config.

GreetD and ReGreet

GreetD is the login manager, and ReGreet provides its graphical login screen. The greeter role installs greetd-regreet, writes GreetD's configuration to /etc/greetd/config.toml, and enables the greetd service.

At startup, GreetD runs the default session as the greeter user. Its command starts a temporary Sway instance using /etc/greetd/sway-config; that config starts ReGreet. The greeter Sway config and ReGreet appearance settings come from ansible/roles/greeter/files/sway-config and ansible/roles/greeter/files/regreet-config.toml. When you select Sway in ReGreet, it launches the logged-in desktop using the Sway Wayland session entry at /usr/share/wayland-sessions/sway.desktop. This starts a separate Sway process from the temporary Sway instance that displays the login screen.

Terminal: Alacritty, Zsh and Tmux

Alacritty

I use Alacritty, a simple, performant terminal emulator that uses GPU rendering. It provides little beyond the basics, but can be configured by file.

~/.config/alacritty/alacritty.toml highlights

I'm using the font Input Mono and tried to make the colors roughly like Molokai, though I need some work on my colors in terminal and Tmux. I set background_opacity because I like the look, but it admittedly makes it harder to read text. I usually keep the terminal over less distracting areas of my desktop background. :)

Zsh

I use Zsh with Oh My Zsh, the Powerlevel10k theme, and the history-search-multi-word plugin.

The dotfiles link ~/.zshenv and ~/.zshrc to the versions in this repository. .zshenv runs for every Zsh process and sets up environment variables and function lookup paths. .zshrc loads the interactive shell configuration, Oh My Zsh, and completions. Private, machine-specific settings can go in ~/.zshenv.local and ~/.zshrc.local. Ansible installs Zsh and checks out Oh My Zsh, Powerlevel10k, and the history search plugin in ansible/roles/base/tasks/shell.yml.

Tmux

Zsh starts or attaches to Tmux when I open an interactive shell outside Tmux, using tmux.zsh. A systemd user service is also defined in tmux.service, but its enablement task is currently commented out in shell.yml. The Oh My Zsh Tmux plugin is not enabled; its entry in plugins.zsh is commented out.

My Tmux config in files/tmux.conf sets up my main keyboard shortcuts and these plugins:

• nhdaly/tmux-better-mouse-mode
• soyuka/tmux-current-pane-hostname
• tmux-plugins/tmux-logging
• tmux-plugins/tmux-yank
• christoomey/vim-tmux-navigator

Tmux cheatsheet

Navigate between panes with ^b followed by an arrow key, or use vim-tmux-navigator's prefix-free ^h, ^j, ^k, and ^l shortcuts; ^\ moves to the previous split.

For the following shortcuts, press ^b first:

• sessions: :new
• windows: c create, l list, n next, p previous, & kill, f find, , name
• panes: / split horizontally, - split vertically, o swap, q show numbers, x kill, toggle layouts
• other: t big clock, d detach, ? list shortcuts, L toggle logging, I install plugins, P save complete history (also happens on ^d)

Vim

My Vim configuration ~/.vimrc uses vim-plug to manage plugins. Ansible installs Vim via ansible/roles/editors/tasks/main.yml; vim-plug is bootstrapped by the Vim configuration, and plugins can be installed or updated with :PlugInstall.

Misc

Cron

Arch does not have cron by default but uses systemd/Timers instead. I tried implementing a few things this way, such as my Folding@home idle check setup, but it's way more painful than adding a line to a crontab. I'm not really sure why I was trying so hard to give the systemd timers a chance, so now I'm switching to using cronie, a crontab implementation. I actually had it installed since the beginning without realizing it; so much for the simplicity I tried to have by using only systemd!

Cronie's daemon is cronie.service. Jobs can be configured in per-user crontabs with crontab -e or system-wide in /etc/cron.d/ and periodic-job directories such as /etc/cron.daily/.